This work seeks to decode the manner in which children from marginalised societies learn. This thesis establishes the mode in which children in primary schools, in particular, internalise misconceptions. It further establishes that experience-based pedagogy is not an effective method to enable learning with understanding among the children of the marginalised section of society (lower economic stratum).

NCERT is framing and proposing to introduce Experiential Activities across the Education Boards as a national initiative. On the directive of NCERT, several schools in the city are replacing existing curriculum with experience-based learning. Previous attempts to set up schools based on experiential learning have not gained impetus, and schools based on the philosophy of experiential learning have opted to change the mode to formal systems. Experience-based pedagogy is based on personal experiences or learning ‘by doing’. Experience based pedagogy has been effective in schools globally and is an established mode of communication for conceptual understanding by educators. It is considered an effective tool for learning with understanding among primary school children.

The underlying methodology is in three parts: (1) an initial correlational study, in which a phenomenon is observed and studied. (2) an intermediate study using phenomenography to establish the occurrence of the phenomenon in other geographic areas of the country; (3) a specific study, which entails studying 20 school children for 18 weeks; and finally, a focused study on 3 students who dropped out of the group of 20 children. The hypothesis is based on two main theoretical concepts. The first concept is based on Kolb’s experiential learning theory. This theory advocates the feedback mechanism and looping between reflection, analysis, and observation. This process goes on until conceptual understanding is achieved.